Peach Sin
by Strawberry Bijou
Summary: StevenMay - the fairytale lies drain down the porcelain sink habitually.


**Pairing: **Steven/May  
**Note(s): **Bad days are the best days to write romantic angst. Enjoy.  
**Edit Note: **Whew, there were so many errors in this! I apologize for that...

* * *

**peach sin  
**the fairytale lies drain down the porcelain sink.

She had her own fairytale written since she was twelve; a creamy joy that held a placement in her mind since the age of eighteen. She has long forgotten about princes and princess, about knights and dragons. About the raging fires eating up spiraling towers that flew up to the sky, ivory and burnt. She chooses to not relieve those past moments, those few seconds where he had offered a _smile_, a _laugh_, and maybe even a _kiss_. She chooses – wants – to forget about her conforming knight but there are two factors playing in.

One: she is scared. So, so very scared that her heart hammers in her chest at the mention of a steel type pokémon.  
Two: she wants to remember his touch. His fire cracked lips, so soft, so chaste, that they haunt her nightmares.

And it makes her so anxious. It makes her want to scream out in frustration, to cry when she can't remember the exact sound of his voice. Its scary, too scary to be happening to her, of all people.

But she is just a peach sin in an innocent world and it couldn't be helped.

* * *

It was an irrevocable joy she felt, having bandages removed. Not the ones that littered her arms and legs, bright yellow and pikachu donned, but the ones that were held firmly over her heart. She had thought they'd be gone by then, certainly the thudding was annoying, but they were just now disappearing.

The sun had strung itself across the blue sky, holding clouds for hostages. It was the warm day, brilliant and sweet, that she had received her first proper definition of perfection.

Just sixteen, she'd already beaten the Kanto elite four, something people twice her age couldn't even say. And she was proud, she was, but there was something missing. Something that could make her heart hammer, that could make flowers recoil from such beauty in that something, from such loveliness that they themselves were envious.

It was hard to think that that something was even imaginable, but it was, in her fairytale locked eyes.

But there she was, dreaming, in front of the lake in her home town.

Her bitten salami sandwich dangled in her hands when he had walked past her, causing the air to waft from the smell of a noble cologne. It, she remembered, made her freeze in her tracks, bread crumbs littering her lips.

He was, she noticed, walking into Brendan's dad's – Birch's – laboratory. His coat wasn't askew from travel, his silver hair wasn't ruffled, and certainly, his eyes weren't muddled or confused. He was perfectly perfect with inked eyes that told nothing and a mind, _heart_, that was sealed expertly.

She had dropped her fishing pole and threw her sandwich, paying no mind to the magikarp that fought over it, and had steeled herself into the route of the lab. She was a curious girl, smart too, but she hadn't the slightest idea how that one single move would ruin the rest of her life.

And so she had walked in, had smiled and offered a freckled charm, and even flipped her hair. The inevitable happened:

"I personally think you would do well at challenging the elite four here, but they are just a tad bit stronger than Kanto's. Just a tad."

He winked and May felt like she had been missing an important detail but the excuse was there. It was time that she put her big girl pants on and traveled her own region instead of running away.

So she had grinned and said she would, starting the never-ending dance that was their relationship.

* * *

She lived in a place in between dreams and reality. It was the lovely sort of land, dappled with forget-me-not's and haloed humans. She liked living there, she really did, but it was boring. Beating gym leader after gym leader was becoming just the slightest bit redundant. Why couldn't they be stronger, why?

But then, her donning the recent seven badges, was welcomed with a frightening change.

They had many encounters, some on purpose, others on chance, but they did. They knew each other and May herself dearly liked Steven, but she still hadn't the slightest idea that he had once been champion. That he himself had capes, like Lance, hiding in the back of his closet like an ambiguous secret.

And when he had offered a battle, just to see how strong she was, she had accepted.

The sound of waves blew everything away and it was just them. Just their star gazed hearts, bandages peeled, weaknesses set aside, and May knew that somewhere, deep in her mind, that she would lose.

She had lost more than the battle that day.

"I'm sorry… I thought I was better than that."

Six to zero, of course she thought she'd at least of gotten one of his out.

"You have no need to apologize, May. I had… _fun_."

And, somehow, with him just mentioning that, she felt a breath of fresh air, even as he whispered _"goodbye" _and turned to leave. Even when he offered a pale skinned wave because she was too caught up in the fact that her heart was free.

When she was sure he was gone, the bandages hit the floor with a soft drop.

* * *

She was a runner. She loved the challenge of darting across ocean filled lands and dream ridden worlds. Adored it, more like it, which put more use to her plan.

She was going to disappear into Johto after the annual Champions' Ball, she really was, but after she saw him in his own tuxedo, her mind was changed. May was already too purged into the ways of Hoenn that she couldn't turn her back on it – _him_.

So, of course after noticing the way the darkness of his clothes matched her shoes, she made way to talk to him. Just to offer an excuse to hear his voice. It would be too easy just to get him to start up a mind boggling conversation that always ended with a silent _iloveyou _on her part. Too easy.

But, at that moment, it wasn't easy at all, no sir. He was talking to a blonde bombshell who had a purple haired man hanging on her side. He was holding a book, seemingly engrossed in it, but his eyes kept flickering up at deadpan moments in the conversation. The girl (woman) had a serious look on her face and a ring on her finger.

That just made it harder because May knew in the back of her mind that that woman had experience, that she could coil any man her way to do her own bidding. But she also knew that that woman was sincere, honest, kind… and absolutely, unfairly, drop dead gorgeous.

And she, being the teenager that she was, softly skirted towards the edge of the dance floor where a red haired male wearing a yellow dress shirt was trying to get a short kid drunk. It was just her cup of tea.

She stayed there for the rest of the night, ignoring _Flint's _– she had learned that was his name – sexual comments that made _Aaron _– a child who looked to be just a few years younger than her – giggle and flush.

May was all too happy when, after the blonde woman disappeared, Steven had approached her with a hazy look. He didn't even seem to notice the way her steel colored dress puffed around her thighs, the way her cleavage was just a bit too much out there. He had just offered a "_will you dance with me_" and she had gladly taken it.

"You're wearing morganite."

He had realized that the stones in her ear were rare and beautiful quickly, just fast enough to make her conclude that all he was interested in were stones. But that thought diminished when his hand hesitated over the necklace which hung deftly above her heart.

So she had grabbed his palm and let him feel the pink jewel, her rising pulse, and after a few seconds of thoughtless winners brisling against the floor in dream wear, he had looked up at her.

Her heartbeat had grown stronger. He seemed to notice.

He racked a nail around the necklace; May shivered. He noticed.  
He moved his hand from her shoulders to the small arc in her back; May bit her lip. He noticed.  
He grabbed the gem, his palm grueling over her fluttering heartbeat, and placed it against his lips; May froze. He noticed.

He kissed the necklace, bringing it inside his mouth so quickly, so daringly, that she didn't realize when it thudded against her chest, but instead the way he seemed closer. How the room was awfully hotter.

Suddenly, she pressed into him, longing for something she'd never had, and looked up. She didn't have a chance to see his expression as he'd already given her a passionate kiss. He pulled away and May saw peach sins hanging on his lips, so vile, so beautiful, that she couldn't help but close the distance again and kiss him back.

* * *

She sent a paper airplane off by air with the words _i'mhappy _to her mother. It was written on cobalt paper, the color of her eyes, the color of his breath after a desperate kiss. May hoped she wouldn't notice.

And, ever since that day, waves had crashed down on her. People hadn't seemed to notice the way his lips lingered over hers, the way his hand brushed against her murky hair, and if they did, they didn't seem to care. But, then again, that purple haired man looked _awfully _angry.

May paid no mind to him because she was living her happily ever after. But it was weird.

That blonde woman had gone to the Hoenn elite four building every day since May had started training. She had learned that she was _Cynthia_, the Cynthia. The merciless trainer in battle but with a larger, yet stoic, heart outside in reality.

She had watched with a flush the day she realized. Steven didn't seem to notice and he disappeared when he saw her and Wallace together.

But, when he left the double doors leading to a challenge for new trainers, it was extremely odd the way Cynthia seemed to almost radiate anger towards Steven like the violet haired bookworm. May wondered absently if it was her fault.

Probably not.

And even when Steven had placed a hand on the small of her back, guiding her outside and towards Mossdeep, the female champion had looked deftly after him like he was committing some harsh crime.

May would soon realize that her heart was depending on the bucolic lining of unreal love.

* * *

"So what your saying is that your father… he's the arranged marriage type of guy, I gather?"

"Yes."

Steven walked around the perimeter of his room, glancing at stones and rocks in glass cases. He liked to think he wasn't a killer of hearts, a masquerader of dreams -since he didn't like wearing capricious masks and scratchy gloves - but at that moment, he knew he was.

He could tell that by the way her eyes welled with tears (scarred from the image of him kissing his fiancé) she was hurt. Deftly hurt. And he was the anti-knight who had ruined her wishes.

Obviously he felt like he had just been run over.

"Can't you back out of it?"

Her voice wavered as princesses in pink ball gowns flitted out of her mind.

"No."

"Can't you suggest he marry that lady?"

Her question was ridiculous – his father was fifty odd something – but Steven couldn't help but notice the way he saw princes fighting dragons careen out of her vision.

"No."

"Well, then, what do we do?"

And he glanced up at her, hard, emotionless, and hoped that his voice didn't shake:  
"We break up."

Her façade cracked quickly and it was hard to not want to say _dreamsarereali'llbeyourprinceandyou'llbemyprincess _but he succeeded with trouble. Her eyes though, red rimmed like rubies, were so troubling that he couldn't help but place a hesitant hand on the top of her head and whisper, "I wish that we could."

But then she backed away, wiping her ivory skin of fairytale-less tears. Her heart was bandaged again, and even as she backed away, even when she saw how desperately he wanted to be with her, she muttered "I hate you" each step of the way.

* * *

She had gotten an invitation in the mail because, surprisingly, her mom was friends with the mother of the bride. And also, even more astonishing, she was going to go. She decided it would lessen the pain some, but also worsen it in some places, but she had to get used to seeing the fiancé every day. She was, after all, the leading journalist of the popular news network _Daily Pokémon_.

She'd have to get used to seeing her flashing her ring on the screen, giggling, brushing back a lock of perfectly perfect blonde hair. And May didn't know if she could handle that.

So the tears went pouring down the glass sink, spiraling down into the sewer pipes. The dragon's flame seized to exist and the fairytale dreams disappeared.

* * *

She had always known that her world was held up by paper bricks. They were colored on with bright blues, dazzling yellows, and audacious magentas, but she couldn't help but hope that at their wedding it would all be a joke. That that her red colored block of a living nightmare would just be a _gotcha! _moment and everything would go back to normal. The paper blocks would turn white.

But May knew that they would forever be stained crimson.

* * *

"I never hated you. Never… even when I said so, it was a lie."

Her voice shook hesitantly while he stared at her. The wedding was over and done with, but during the whole sequence, May wished that she had been in his other half's place the entire time. It was beautiful, with ivory place cards and velvet powdered chairs. Like a fairytale dustland, remnants of an imperfect past that could have been hers, but yet again ended up as a theived happily ever after.

Steven looked at her. Really looked at her. And the seconds passed by them, ticking, tocking, until finally May went to leave wordlessly from the empty corridor. He didn't want her to go, not then, not ever, and voiced his thoughts.

His hand stayed on hers until she whispered the deepest, most bitter regret of all:

"I can't do this. I'm sorry, I-I just can't."

And she ran, ignoring a call from Cynthia, who she had discovered earlier was the bride's sister. It was all too much, too much for her to even fathom handling. And so she disappeared.

The peach sins hung vacantly in the air. Happily ever after's don't exist in her world anymore.  
(but her feelings still do)

* * *

end.


End file.
